1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a printer management and printing control system used with printers to enable effective use and management of the printers connected with a communication network. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to a printer management and printing control system used with printers, which is capable of providing respective clients, connected with a management server, with status information about the connected printers when printing a command of an application program of the clients' is executed, thereby allowing each client to select various functions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, computers are connected through a LAN (local area network) and share a certain number of printers such that the computers can selectively transfer print data to the printers for printing.
When an application program of a certain client executes a printing command, a predetermined printer driver is operated to transmit print data to a corresponding printer for printing. Accordingly, printing is carried out through the corresponding printer in a predetermined way. However, users can not choose printing conditions of the printers, such as a printing quality and speed.
For example, some printers may have a high quality while others do not. Also, certain printers may be used more frequently than the others. As for the clients, the clients may want a higher printing quality rather than a speed in some instances, or want a fast printing rather than a good printing quality in other instances.
The conventional fixed printing, however, cannot satisfy these requirements. Additionally, the conventional printing is based on a direct printing method, which requires using a corresponding driver of devices in use, and therefore, the user can not fully utilize the respective additional features of the printers, such as text or image insert or printing of a single page in multiple copies.